Archive for the 'Movies' Category

The magicians over at Pixar have some great new stuff coming out this year and next.

First up is Ratatouille, opening June 29 in the U.S, about a Parisian rat who loves to cook, living under a fancy restaurant.

Click on the image to go see the trailer.

Most people have heard about that film. What many have not heard about, as of yet, is Pixar’s follow-up to Ratatouille, coming in Summer 2008.

There is no trailer for WALL-E yet and we don’t know very much about this film, but Pixar head John Lasseter recently explained the premise:

WALL-E is the story about the last little robot on Earth. He is a robot, and his programming was to help clean up Earth. You see, it’s set way in the future. Through consumerism, rampant, unchecked consumerism, the Earth was covered with trash. And to clean up, everyone had to leave Earth and set in place millions of these little robots that went around to clean up the trash and make Earth habitable again. Well, the cleanup program failed with the exception of this one little robot and he’s left on Earth doing his duty all alone. But it’s not a story about science fiction. It’s a love story, because, you see, WALL-E falls in love with [Eve], a robot from a probe that comes down to check on Earth, and she’s left there to check on and see how things are going and he absolutely falls in love with her. And he follows her back up to her main spaceship, and you see a vision of the space and the future in this movie like you’ve never seen before. It is really spectacular. But with all Pixar films, one of the things we pride ourselves in, not only a great story, but the characters, memorable, appealing characters and these little robot characters that help WALL-E and Eve, these rejected, defective little robots, are the most charming group of characters we have ever created. And so, in the end, always about Pixar films, it’s about the heart of the story. And this story is one of the most special things. Again, if you liked Finding Nemo, you’re going to love this movie, because Andrew Stanton is one of the most talented filmmakers working today.

Plus, we are hearing that the first 1/3 of the movie is played without dialogue, as he is alone on the planet. Needless to say, I cannot wait for this one!

I recently did a re-watch on Pulp Fiction (1994 — Quentin Tarantino) as Mrs. Autodidact had started forgetting it. It was incredible how at the time of its release it was felt so foreign and strange and how now it feels so very normal. The styles of filmmaking and of screenwriting have so deeply seeped into our culture that we watch shows on TV every day that feel like Pulp Fiction.